SITE SUITABILITY ANALYSIS FOR LANDFILL IN ASHIYIE, GHANA

Ashiyie is a town presently experiencing urban growth and one of the challenges in the area is poor waste management system. Proper management of solid waste in the area is necessary to keep the environment clean and tidy, and avoid dump of rubbish at any available open space causing environmental pollution. This study envisage to select an area or site which will be most convenient and more appropriate for landfill site location in Ashiyie community, Ghana, using Geospatial approach. GoeEye satellite imagery and SRTM data of the area were collected, processed and analyzed in ArcGIS software environment. The Boolean overlay operation was employed to select the most suitable sites to solve the environmental problem of landfill in the Study area. Results highlighted a total area of 198 acres for landfill site. Identified suitable locations were superimposed on slope map and sturctural query language (SQL) was applied to select the most suitable, moderate and less suitable. A final suitability map for landfill site was produced. Seven areas were identified to be most suitable, eleven sites were moderately suitable and one site less suitable. It can be concluded from this study that GIS has the capabilities of combining information from various sources into a spatial context, which can be used by policy makers as a well suited decision support making tool. From the study carried out, it is clear that there is need for an effective solid waste disposal management in the study area, therefore, the Chiefs, the Municipal Authorities and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can consider this research and used for proper planning of Ashiyie Community.